We woke up the next day, May 21, ready to jump in the car and see the sights. But not without a hearty breakfast. And let me tell you, Irish breakfast is not just a meal, it's an experience. A delicious, delicious experience. Two fried eggs, bacon, sausage, stewed tomato, black pudding, and white pudding. Along with toast and juice and tea or coffee with milk. Amazing. Because the bacon was fresh (like the bacon my brother smoked for me), I could eat it without fear of a headache later. I was not a huge fan of the black and white pudding, but Alec traded me his bacon for the pudding. I think I got the better end of the deal. Black and white pudding look like two sausage patties, but they're made with spices and, well, I'm not sure what else. My understanding is that the black pudding is made with blood. I wasn't a huge fan of the white pudding (which is really a brownish color), so I passed on trying the black pudding (which really is pretty black).
We had a nice chat with a couple of ladies from England visiting relatives. After that, we left the B&B for the open road. Destination: Slea Head Drive.
The Slea Head Drive is a scenic route that follows the outer edge of the Dingle Peninsula. It has less traffic than the well-known Ring of Kerry, but they LIE on the travel shows when they say that buses don't do the Slea Head Drive because it is too narrow. Not as many buses attempt it, and I'm pretty sure the drivers must have to go to stunt driving school (along with all Mexican bus drivers and anyone who attempts to drive in Rome) to qualify to make the Slea Head Drive. Our first stop was a beach. Our friends back at the B&B had told us that we would come across this beach, but we should just hop out of the car for a minute to look because it wasn't the pretty beach--the pretty beach was futher up the road. So, we did just that. And in jumping out of the car, we realized just how cold and damp it was outside. Or, I realized it and really wished I had a hat. And gloves. And possibly a scarf. Actually, it really wasn't incredibly cold (in the 50s), but it was really windy. So, I attempted to wear Alec's OU hat to keep in some warmth. That lasted about 3 stops before I realized that the wind really wanted to steal the hat. Back into the car it went.
We drove a bit farther down the way and stopped at Dunbeg Fort, which was built around 500 BC. They are unsure as to what the fort was used for--it could have been a defensive position, a ritual site, or just lived in. It sits on the edge of a promontory cliff jutting into Dingle Bay and is quite impressive, despite the fact that there really isn't just a whole lot there. We had fun traveling through the Bronze-Age sized doors, which we determined were 3/4 of an Elizabeth tall. We decided that the world needed a new unit of measure, so we started measuring things in Elizabeths. Move over, metric system!
After Dunbeg, we moved down the road and stopped at some beehive huts. These stone dwellings are domed (like a beehive, hence the name) and have been around for a very, very long time. In the past they were repurposed by local farmers as places to shelter their livestock. Now many sites are under the protection of the government and are being preserved, but there was definite evidence that the farmers still graze their sheep on the site, if you know what I mean. Watch out for landmines! Guess it's cheaper than a lawn service, and makes better sweaters :-)
We approached Slea Head, which is a point on the peninsula that looks out on to the bay. From here you can see the Blasket Islands, known as the "last parish before Boston," as they are the westernmost point in Ireland. They have a shrine here to the crucifixion. I am trying to let you know what some of these things are, but talking about them is almost a waste of time. Until you see the vistas we saw, it's difficult to understand what I'm trying to express. Pictures capture it pretty well, but you can't hear the sound of the surf hitting the rocks, or feel the cool mist hitting your face, or hear a multi-colored bleating sheep in the distance, or feel the remote peacefulness of these places through a photo. It was a blessing to be able to experience it.
As we rounded the corner from Slea Head, we looked upon an amazing site. A beach, surrounded by cliffs, appeared in the distance. Above the beach and cliffs were neat, green pastures divided by stone walls. On that hillside, low-lying clouds hung in the air like a curtain. It was breathtaking. I tried with all my might to get the best pictures I could to remember just what the sky meeting the earth and sea looked like. We drove over to the beach, climbed out of the Ka, and walked down a paved road to the sand. We walked around, wrote in the grainy sand, and watched a group of (we think) German teenagers run toward the surf. All of the boys in the group stripped off their clothes down to bathing suits or boxer shorts and jumped into the water. I suspect it was fairly cold, as each of them shouted as soon as the water hit them. One managed to stay out longer than the others, challenging the cold and the sea with his arms raised. He must have been the big winner. Or we were, because we got to watch and laugh from a much warmer place!
We passed a beach with a marker for the sinking of some ships from the Spanish Armada. Yes, that Spanish Armada. A bit unexpected in Ireland. And the Monty Python-esque jokes about "Nobody expects the Spanish Armada!" ran free.
Continuing on our drive, we walked down a rather steep hill to get a great view of a little inlet with another beach. There was a town on top of the cliffs and, as finding a bathroom had become a necessity at this point, we decided to head over to the town. We found a pottery studio that I had read about during my intensive vacation research, so we stopped in to see the stuff, visit the restroom, and possibly eat at the cafe. We decided that we didn't necessarily want sandwiches and soup, so we found the small grocery across the street and picked up some drinks to go along with our cream cheese and chive sandwich crackers and granola bars. Excellent road lunch. There was a beautiful old church across the street with a mosaic of the Madonna and Child on the steeple. I have to admit, I wasn't really expecting to see mosaics until we got to Italy, so it was pretty cool.
We wound our way around to Gallarus Oratory, a stone church that looks like an upturned boat. It was built without any mortar to hold the stones together. After somewhere around 1500 years, the building is still watertight. There is also an ogham stone outside the building. Ogham stones are pillar-like stones that contain carvings that spell out words in the ancient Irish alphabet. There aren't too many remaining, and some have been moved to museums and the like. On Dingle Peninsula, there were several still in their native homes.
On the map I had found an old monastery and church, Kilmalkedar, that I wanted to track down. In true backroads fashion, the signs were misleading, so we ended up finding a beautiful lookout with a steep path down to a small beach. A statue nearby (and an informational sign) let us know that this was the place where supposedly St. Brendan the Navigator set forth on his harrowing journey across the Atlantic in a small, skin boat around 1000 AD. Legend has it that he was the first European man to discover North America.
After this brief stop, we began our search for "Kil, Kilma, well, it's Kil-something!" as I called it at one point. Alec seemed a bit apprehensive at the name Kil-something. Anyway, back on the road to find Kilmalkedar. We found it, and it's ancient sundial in the churchyard and ogham stone inside the ruined sanctuary. The Celtic crosses in the churchyard were interesting and beautiful, but the most interesting part to us was that it was still an active cemetery. Graves from the 2000s were mixed with graves from the 17th and 18th centuries. This turned out to be the case in several other ruined churchyards that we found. Despite the lack of a church or congregation at the site, the burial ground was still hoppin'.
Once we had visited Kilmalkedar, we decided it was time to head back toward town, maybe do some shopping, and get some dinner. When we set out for the day, our host Denis said that you could do the Slea Head Drive in two hours or much, much longer. We spent about 7 hours driving approximately 25 miles of coastline. We didn't arrive back in town in time to do any shopping, so we saved that for the next morning. We grabbed dinner and drinks at Murphy's, where we tried the Bulmer's Cider that we'd seen other people drinking. It was delicious. Notice that each beer or cider comes in a glass with its own name on it. Makes it easier to remember when we had what! After dinner we decided to hop down the street for another evening of music. I wrote in my trip journal a bit while enjoying some Irish coffee and a fiddle and guitar performance. Perfect way to end a perfect day.
Coming up next: Will they survive their attempts to find their B&B in Cork?
For more information on many of the sites we visited on our drive, check out http://www.dingle-peninsula.ie/archaeo.html
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